Friends, welcome to Word on Fire Catholic Ministries. Word on Fire is an

apostolate dedicated to the mission of evangelization using media both old and

new to share the faith on every continent and to facilitate an encounter with

Christ and His Church. The efforts of Word on Fire engage the culture and bring

the transformative power of God's Word where it is most needed. Today we invite

you to join Bishop Robert Barron as he preaches the gospel and shares the

warmth and light of Christ with each one of us. Peace be with you. Friends, our

gospel for today is from the wonderful 14th chapter of Matthew and it's his

account of the calming of the storm and the walking on the water. This is an event

that reached very deeply into the hearts and minds of the first Christians. We

can find an account of this in all four gospels and obviously this sort of thing

would have just turned them upside down and they began to reflect on this

extraordinary event in very deep ways. By the time the gospels are written down

what you have is it's a combination now and they're two schools you know one

wants to go one way one the other and they're both true. What I mean is this is

an historical account. It's an account of something that happened. So don't think

that this is just a made up story with a moral meaning. No, no. This happened but

once it happened the Christian community began to reflect very deeply on the

event and pull out the different levels of meaning associated with it. So

that when it's finally written down let's say Matthew's gospel is around your 80

or so when it's finally written down what you have is not a newspaper account.

You know if you're a good journalist you just give me you know who what when

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